Thursday, December 28, 2006

Mosaic Plan in Color

I have been working with a team of Crealdé volunteer artists, fifth grade students at Killarney Elementary, and after-school kids at the Community Center, and kindergarteners at Dommerich Elementary, to make a broken-tile mosaic celebrating the history and heritage of Winter Park's historically African-American community in Hannibal Square, with support from The Golden Rule Foundation.

Designed by students after learning about the community’s history, the mosaic shows the story of the 1887 election, when the citizens of Hannibal Square joined together to parade across the tracks to vote. This historic event resulted in the election of two black Aldermen to the town council of Winter Park.

Above is the design in color. On the right are a group of citizens joining together to parade across the tracks to vote in the historic 1887 election when two black Aldermen were elected to the government of Winter Park. The three largest figures are intended to be Fank Israel and Walter Simpson, the elected Aldermen, and Gus Henderson, the publisher of the black newspaper, the Advocate, who rallied the voters together. The are crossing the tracks over to Park Avenue, to Ergood's Drug Store, where elections were held.

in the lower left corner are children playing marbles, and a girl with a makeshift doll made from a coke bottle, based on the colorful oral history that local historian and Hannibal Square resident Fairolyn Livingston told the project core group of students during our kick-off fieldtrip.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the drawing; would the streets have been red brick?

Anonymous said...

Lynn, just blogged this photo from flickr at http://mosaicartsource.wordpress.com/2006/11/02/mosaic-mural-plan-cartoon/ I wanted to add artist info & found your blog will add link to the post. Love your work, have fun & good luck! d

ps. wediboard is fantastic, just make sure to protect & seal edges!

Lynn said...

Not sure if the streets were brick... could be, as many streets were/are in Winter Park -- more likely dirt in this part of town at that time. Anyway, we are cutting out letters to spell out a short summary of the story of the mosaic, and putting it in the path, and we will make the surrounding tiles look somewhat like bricks. Not sure of the color yet.